


Madness

by YukitenTheDark



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, Betrayal, Death, Drabble, F/M, Gen, Novel, Romance, Sadness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-11-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 16:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YukitenTheDark/pseuds/YukitenTheDark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man who does not know his name worships his dead goddess in a dead world, traveling to and from the tainted rivers and the empty fields and her broken temples. His love for her is unrivaled, because through all of the darkness and pain, he had hope that she'd come back to him and all her subjects. But when she tells him his name and purpose, he grows cold.<br/>Death: there is nothing beyond. The souls of the beloved are the souls of what was lost. None but the fallen remain, merely ghosts of the past. Some roam tirelessly looking for purpose, others know they don't have one. In the dark, they scramble about like flies, searching for solace and sanctuary without the guidance of a sun.  In the endless aftermath of the event Ichor Fall, there is no rest, no kindness, no boundaries, no law. Life hangs in the balance by a tiny thread - and there are none who can save it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my main project right now, something I'm very proud of. It may not make much sense, but everything will come together. And I own it. It IS MINE. If I catch it reposted, reblogged (it's on Tumblr and Wattpad, too, because I have accounts there), whatever, I WILL find you and I WILL kill you.
> 
> Enjoy!

Ichor Fall - the calamity that was a cascade of black stars upon Gaia, the taint, the darkness. The world is left in ruin, her trees and flowers turned cold and black, her animals running frozen in place and broken, choking on the black corrosive smoke oozing from the stars. The soil is saturated with ash and sadness, tamped flat by the sluggish feet of the damned, the fallen, the lost, clumped together by the blood, sweat, and tears of the frightened and starving. The sun won't rise for them, no matter how long they pray. The moon won't pull the tide, no matter how long they cry. The bones of dead animals are stained red by their blood, crushed and spread like ashes. 

Life is but a ghost, a memory, a dream. 

Hardly anything remains. 

Hopelessness, anger, famine, fear, lies, death; They loom around every corner, snatching the remaining up with filthy, tainted claws. The lost souls of yesterday are devoured by the evils of today, swallowed, digested, and then lost once more. There is no hope, no happiness, no calm, no fullness, no truth, no real life. The few are restless. Dead. Corrupted. 

And gone.


	2. fire.

He can see the light in the dead stars, feel their cold heat. He knew they destroyed her, forced her into a shell of her former self, strangled her with black poison chains. 

They were jealous of the warm heat she emitted, her kindness, her strength. 

He knew why they destroyed her, how the destroyed her, because he witnessed it. His home was ripped apart by their jealous hands. His mother lay in ashes, his brother in pieces all splayed out before him in a bloody mess.

There was no kindness left in the sun's rays, tainted by envy.


	3. Your Reminder

There's always going to be that day you just can't run away, trapped under the weight of your mistakes. You won't have any control over when that day comes or how heavy the weight is. It keeps you in chains, heavy ones, and restricts all movement, tightening and tightening until your chest caves in under the pressure, blood oozing from various points. You cough and it splatters all over, dripping from your dry lips, pooling around you slowly. It hurts and you cry, whimpering and whining and moaning and groaning.

You should've never told her, reminded her of that day it all came to a screeching halt.


	4. No. 5 with a Bullet

They lied to her, at first, to spare her feelings, he knew. 

Running his fingers through the thin, dead grass, he knew. 

He knew her heart had been broken by such betrayal, hardly sparing anyone in her storm of anger and hurt. She couldn't believe that her people could do such a thing, knowing full well that the power of will was the only thing guiding them. Will dressed in brilliant robes of blind worship and false promises, bathed in the light of its own greed and corruption. It tainted her people, poisoned them against her, poisoned the countless stars against her. He knew. And by the end of it all, she bent and finally broke, but oh, she could never go down without a fight.

"Miserable and, oh, really gotta hand it to you," he sang to Gaia, knowing in his emptied heart she would never listen. It didn't hurt him. He didn't deserve her audience, but he still wanted to try. Because he still cares for this girl, this home, this planet. "Really gotta hand it to you."

He threw his hands behind his head, the deathly grass pricking at his skin, and breathed a heavy one. Knowing and understanding were two different things standing on equal ground, but he couldn't wrap his head around her decision to trap some innocent and even less of the guilty. He couldn't figure it out. The innocent had no part in this. Children had no part in this and, yet, every day he'd see small children breathing in the dust of the guilty's mistakes, die in the wake of their destruction. Little ones, even babies. It made him vomit.

"Just so you know... Are you positive? When we get home... Absolutely sure?"

He frowned in disappointment. She was a cruel mistress and she had no qualms about it.

"Just get dressed, don't do this."

He sighed.

"Just... d-don't do this."

And he cried.


	5. pillars.

"You're beautiful," he said softly, his hands feeling the cool stone pillar he stood before.

She had many monuments in her name, unfrequented and tattered. They stood even now in this desolate world, igniting small hints of hope in his heart, tiny fires basking in the fact that there were some things even Gaia couldn't let go of. It made him smile, a gesture unseen and lost in the everlasting dark the stars had bestowed upon her. He knew it hurt her to be neglected. He knew that feeling all too well, but he never let her feel that from him. He spent night and day trying to soothe her, even when the sun still shone and the moon was bright. He sang to her, climbed into the arms of her trees, left her gifts made from sage and lavender - and not once did she ignore it. She'd breathe them in, carry them to a secret place, and blow him kisses on the wind.

He could remember dancing in a wheat field, swaying with the ebb and flow of the golden waves. He'd touch the stalks, feeling their softness, and the moment they twisted, so would he. They'd kiss his skin, tickle him, and snap back, and he would follow. When the wind would die down, his knees would bend and his arms would sway above him, his back slowly lowering until the wind picked back up. And he'd rise to her request of doing it all over again. The bells at his hips sounded with every movement, soft and gentle in their ringing. He wore little clothing when he danced. Merely ankle and foot wraps, blue Arabian silk pants with the bells of a Native American jingle dancer fastened to his waist by tiny red strings.

"Do I need to say it again?" he whispered, his blue eyes wandering her darkened temple. His voice never rose when he spoke to her, he made sure of it. He was not angry with her, nor was he frustrated or hurt. If he had to be completely honest, he'd say he was frightened, like an abandoned child, for she would not speak to him. He feared she never would. He feared he'd never feel the soft breeze carry her kisses to him, that he'd never dance with her again in the heat of the sun.

He was so miserably afraid he could be with her no longer.

He had no business being with her to begin with.

"You're beautiful," he paused, "Gaia." Her name rolled off his tongue with ease, like dew from a lush leaf late morning. He flattened his palm against the pillar, his eyes falling upon the altar at the far end of the temple where he last offered her a bundle of lavender and sage.

It was still there.

He sighed.

"But... you're very cruel."

He chuckled softly, tapping his fingers on a crack in the stone, sadness leaking into his voice. Never had she done this. He swallowed and stepped out into the dead grass. Never. She loved praise and kindness, how could she? His eyes stung and his throat threw itself into a knot.

She refused his gift and in doing so, rejected him.

"I-I... I understand."

He trembled in the dust and turned on his heel. Hot tears slipped down his cheeks, soft whimpers escaping him.

No, he didn't.

And he ran.


	6. Tears for the Dead

His feet had taken him to the bank of a shrinking river, and never had he seen such desolation.

Death lined the water, poisoning the sand and what was available for the surviving to drink. Fish lie decaying in small pockets of dried mud, the bones of small creatures strewn about like holiday decorations. Rabbits and raccoons - dead from hunger and dehydration. Insects swarmed their carcasses, but not to eat. They landed, their mouths not roaming the dead bodies available to them. They did not come to eat.

They came to die.

He fell to his knees, staring in horror at the sight before him.

The weeping willows leaned too far over the river, their roots reaching above the soil. The pines had lost their needles. The animals couldn't breathe. People lay with their heads in the water, drinking in the toxicity, while others picked apart a set of rabbit corpses, devouring the disease. Children lay with their limbs strewn about, as if their arms had been ripped from their sockets and their legs spread too far apart, bloated by the water. 

This tore at his heart, breaking it and shredding it to bits. 

He couldn't believe she'd let this all happen. He couldn't believe she'd allow these poor children to die so horribly. He couldn't believe she'd ignored their pleas and damned them. He couldn't believe she'd let the animals starve and squabble to get to the water, only to drink poison and die anyway. He couldn't believe it. 

First her rejection and now this?

Tears slid down his cheeks as he prayed for their souls, his tongue moving in a way that was not English, but Native American. He prayed for their peace and kindness in another life, twisting his torso and lifting himself up once he was finished. He looked to the black sky above him and delved into his only pocket in his pants, fishing for a small coin purse full of sage and lavender.


	7. time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is to be read in a sadly comical way. Although there appears to be no real story yet, I'm focusing on character development right now, it'll come into fruition sooner or later. So don't worry your pretty little heads.

"/Time/," she whispered, her cold green eyes sweeping over him.

It took him a long while to respond, his mind amuck from all that he had seen just a few hours ago. He sat against a stone pillar, the one farthest from the alter of Gaia's temple, eyes staring at the cracks of another pillar across from him, empty and gray. He hardly had it in him to look at her, much less speak to her.

"What about it?" he muttered, the words mere sounds to him, like he hadn't spoken at all. He just made noises, simple ah's and ow's. 

There was a deadly silence ripping through the atmosphere, as if Gaia herself had torn the air apart and screamed in her anger. But there was no sound, just her quickened and frustrated breathing.

"Have you forgotten your own name?" she inquired gruffly, making note of his reluctance to look her in the eye.

She knew of his heartbreak and all that lie beyond that. She knew he was angry with her, so full of disbelief and disappointment, the feelings of pain and being betrayed only scratched the surface. But she did not appear before him to apologize or even chat. She came to remind him of who he was and who he should be.

He didn't answer, the supposed name a word distant to him. It had no meaning, like the life the fallen and the forsaken were forced to live in this tattered world. It had no familiarity to it, not even when he tried to mouth it. 

"Have you forgotten your purpose?"

Only then did his gray-blue eyes make contact with hers, his heart aflutter with anger and sadness. 

"Purpose? What purpose could I possibly have, wandering the husk of what my goddess used to be, unable to control or protect the things around me?" he snapped, his hands weaving into her dark, earthy green hair. His grip grew tight, knuckles turning white, and his heart broke with the words the two exchanged. "I don't know why I'm here, Mother Gaia. I don't know who I am... You took everything from me."

She winced, only slightly, at his words and he could see that.

"What do you want from me?" His voice shook and he trembled before her, his grip softening in the tangles of her hair. Her expression was empty, holding no comfort, and her eyes fell upon the altar at the other side of the temple. He followed her gaze, a tiny gasp leaving him when he saw that his offering to the great goddess had gone.

She wrapped her thin, calloused fingers around his wrists and pulled him out of her hair, standing. The action had little impact on him, as he didn't look to her, but he joined her, pushing himself up beside her. 

"They say, 'Time heals all wounds,'" Gaia began, her voice cold and aloof, pausing for a long moment. After all this time, Time himself had forgotten who he was and his purpose. 'When a god forgets, so does his people.'

"Thus, your task."

"What are you saying?"

She scoffed. "Father Time, the co-creator to the Mother, is lost." 

He looked at her, confusion in his eyes. "What...are you talking about?"

"Do I need to spell it out for you?!" she snapped, shoving him away from her, her frustration quick to boil her blood. "I don't recall you ever being this stupid!"

He easily shrugged her push off, with or without her godly strength, but stepped back out of respect for her wishes. He had no idea what she was talking about with all the god talk. He didn't understand. How could he be a god? The Father? Or even Time? His blue eyes searched the green goddess for an answer and when they found none, he had to open his mouth once more.

"Gaia, why are you saying this?"

"Because, Time, you have forgotten yourself and when a god forgets who he his, so does his people, and so he dies," she hissed, her arms crossed over her chest. 

A smile threatened to slip into his otherwise grim expression.

"I don't know why you think I'm Time, but it's nice that you're worried about me."

"I am not worried!"

"Then why are you telling me all this?"

And then there was silence, nothing more and nothing less. She flickered before him, her thin form fading into the blackness that darkened her temple, leaving him alone once more.


	8. Purpose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Young love and a lack of identity... Awww. I hope you guys are still following!

He tasted the air.

When was the last time he'd slept? Was it last night? Or was it last year? He couldn't remember. 

It was cold and dry.

When was the last time he'd eaten? That morning or a hundred years before? Who knows.

The night was frozen, as if time itself had stopped, forcing the air into stagnation and strangling it with its chill. There was no movement, no sound. Only him, sitting in the gloom of the Temple of Gaia amongst the tattered pews, trying to remember himself.

What was he, a god? A king? No, no, how could he have been? He was just a simple priest. 

And in the dark, all was silent, he saw the shattered mirror that had hung far above the altar, now lying in a pool of its own remains. The altar seemed untouched, but as he strained his eyes, he could see the wear-and-tear it had gone through after the end came to this world.

A priest of a dying goddess, the woman he loved, the planet he lived on... He was no simple priest. But then, what was he?

Earlier, when the deep darkness of the night had not yet come, Gaia spoke to him for the first time in what seemed to be years. His heart sang with the taught chords of her voice, his happiness insurmountable, and yet, she had been so cold, so angry... When she spoke, her voice was fragile like glass, and her eyes were empty, even when she was addressing him and no one else. It hurt him, but he was in no position to oppose her... She was a bird with broken wings, a mouse backed into a corner by a starving cat. He understood. 

When she spoke to him, she'd told him he was Time, a god, a father. 

But he couldn't believe her...

How could he be a god, a father? How could a priest be a god? How could he? He may have been a man without much memory or even a concept of hours, days, and weeks, and the lover of a goddess, but how could he possibly be a god? He was only a priest...

He could feel her watchful gaze and his blue-gray eyes rose from their point of fixation and met her green eyes, his heart breaking with her growing mirth. She was angry with him and he felt it. He shook his head and looked away from her after a moment. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice strained.

He wouldn't have minded it if he died at that moment, for her words were akin to the knives and daggers of murderers and thieves.

"Save it, you fool."


End file.
